


Diary

by Norias



Category: Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers
Genre: Childhood Memories, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:28:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28556151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Norias/pseuds/Norias
Summary: Gadget browsing her old diary, a day before her wedding.
Relationships: Chip/Gadget Hackwrench
Kudos: 1





	Diary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karen "Kat" Mollet](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Karen+%22Kat%22+Mollet).



> The first ideas of this story were created in 1993, but in finalized form it was made in 1996. The notes are from same time. Great thanks goes to Karen "Kat" Mollet, my ever so patient editor and proofreader. Only now, years later, i can understand her patience dealing with my non-native self learnt english... 
> 
> Rescue Rangers © are the property of Disney corporation, used here without permission, and only for the enjoyment of those who love this animation and are wishing to see it return.  
> I am also using a few 'facts' here that are picked up from the other fan-fics and discussions with other RR fanfic authors. I apologize beforehand for the use of your ideas and characters, although I tried to avoid open plagiarism.  
> First, I need to thank J.J.Pierce, author of the "Hooded Menace". I used the ideas of animal crime and punishment used into his fanfic, even if I didn’t use any of the original personas he had invented.  
> I also need thank Michael Demcio, as this fanfic is a direct result and response to a discussion we had with him a year ago, after first publication of the superior Rescue Rangers fiction - "Rhyme & Reason", and beginning of "Sisters".  
> And, finally, I need to thank all those who participated in the heated discussion on the "Gadget and Chip" topic in mid-October on the 'alt.fan.disney.afternoon' newsgroup. Some of you will see some of the ideas and facts used in my 'fic.  
> Other characters and situations are mine.  
> You can reproduce this story in any form, electronic or paperprinted, as long as this work is not modified, my name is kept with the story, and you aren’t gaining any profit from your actions.

It was well past midnight. Stars were out in the dark sky, but the Moon was young and currently had turned his dark side to Earth.

Night. Time for all good people to sleep... Well, for those who can.

Gadget couldn't. She was too excited, too activated, to go to sleep even if she knew she should. She had tried for two hours; the clock on the wall showed an hour over midnight, but she still couldn't sleep.

Tomorrow...

Gadget giggled silently like a teenage schoolgirl; a completely unsuited action for a young woman of a twenty-three years age.

"Well, if I can't sleep anyway, why not do something I had put off doing for a long time...?" she smiled, and calmed down enough to sit up.

Gadget stood up, tossed a light robe over her nightgown to protect warmness of her body, and went to the cupboard, stepping with bare feet on the floorboards.

In the left lower drawer (which usually stayed locked for weeks), hidden under a stack of old blueprints, was a small notebook in a cartoon cover. It’s corners were dog-earred, it had a stain of something on the lower half, and it looked like it went through the hell along with the owner. It also showed signs of careful repairing done to it, with glue and scotch tape, needle and thread.

"To my dear girl Gadget HackWrench." was pressed on the front page in little faded, golden print. Gadget looked at the words, and sighed. How long it had been... She closed her eyes, remembering...

  
  
  


"Gadget! Gadget dear, I’m home!" called voice, as doors opened.

"Daddy!"

A small white ball with a golden top bounced across the room and hit the middle-aged mouse into knees as he entered.

"Uhh! You have grown up a lot, dear!" The mouse caught his girl in his hands. "I was hoping to get back earlier, but the weather... You know, there is a real snowstorm outside?"

"Yes, Daddy. SenSan, again didn't allow me to go out to play in the snow!"

"Ahh. I don’t see him. Where he is?"

"Aunt Wilma came, and he left with her. Didn't you meet them? They walked out a moment ago."

"No, but I will talk with him later. "

The mouse put his child down, picked up his bags and went to the table.

"Well, what a day we have today?"

"You remembered!" Gadget laughed.

"How can I forget... Happy birthday, Gadget!"

"Thanks. And present?"

The mouse laughed.

"You know, you will turn out to be a heart-breaker when you grow up, Gadget. I have a very special present for you today."

Gadget impatiently tore away the paper wrapper, until a hardcover book was revealed.

"Why does it has my name on it?" she asked in an unsure voice.

"It is your diary. You asked me for one..."

"Ahh. But it’s empty!"

"It will fill with what you will write into it. It is your diary, and only you will write into it, and only what you want to write."

Gadget fell into deep thoughts.

"I wish I had had a diary, when I was a much younger, to give to you someday..." Geegaw said quietly. "However, I would need to tear out quite a few pages from it... before showing it to you... I wish, you will never feel the need to do so with your diary..."

  
  
  


Gadget sighed and returned to the bed, holding the diary and a ballpen. It had happened at her eight birthday. So long ago ...

Gadget curled into bed, pulling the cover over her legs, and opened the diary. Pages had turned a slightly yellow, despite all the care she had spent to preserve it...

Dad's handwriting on the first page; his good wishes. 

Her small, round, childish writings; Gadget slowly skipped through the pages, remembering her childhood...

It wasn’t bad. She had had a dad. She had had uncle SenSan, Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Wilma, and later Uncle Jack. But she didn't have a mom.

That, and the fact she was much more intelligent than all the rest of the kids, set her far apart from them and made her an outcast. She had a few friends, but never close ones. The fact that her dad often changed their living place didn’t help closer relations, either. In the time of her growing from six to sixteen, they had traveled all over America, from west to east and from north to south. They never stayed in one place any longer than a year.

There were a few notes from her friends. A squirrel girl, Miriam, from Whitetail city. They had stayed there all winter, and she was a good friend. In mid-February, Gadget had decided to go out and stay for a night in the forest. They, with the squirrel, had nearly died from that.

The rat boy at Detroit, who was two years older that she, had showed her how to pick any lock. He also dragged her into robbing a local machine part shop. It was first, and last time, she had done something like that. It also was the first and last time her dad had raised hand at her.

That she was - not always a good and patient daughter. A perfect child.

The time she had run away, looking for mother...

The time she had experimented with the dad's chemicals, and created an explosive mixture that near killed her and destroyed dad's workshop...

The time dad had her with him on one of his travels to Africa, and she got lost...

Gadget smiled remembering dad's words. She will need to tear out a few pages, too, before giving her diary to her children, in order not to corrupt them.

Then Gadget went serious. She had turned a page of a darker episode in her life... She sighed...

  
  


Gadget ran to their home. She had returned from the trip to Europe, and had spent all her money to get on the transatlantic plane to New York. Later, she had begged and cried to get on the inland plane to Memphis. She knew dad should be here. He had promised; he will return for her birthday.

She was so proud, as she had won first prize. She had been declared the winner of the Young Technical Minds concourse, and her project had been rewarded.

She hit the doors. They were locked. Gadget searched, found the key in their secret place, unlocked them, then went in. The think layer of the dust on the floor immediately told her that dad isn’t home...

Gadget still hoped. It was the Birthday day; maybe he will return, as he sometimes did - come running into last moment. She slowly picked up a few letters and skipped through them.

Some were from Geegaw's partners. And, at the last, there was Geegaw's letter.

"Happy birthday, my dear!" it stated. "I am so sorry, I can’t come to meet you... I wish I can, but I need do an emergency delivery to Budgumburi, and I can't get out of it. They need it. I will be home into two weeks from today. Kissing you. Geegaw."

Gadget let the letter fall to the floor.

It was later that night, when she had cried out her frustration and loneness, when she had written into her diary: "Dad's away. Again... Why? He is always gone, when I need him so much. Why? It is like he is never here when I need him... He is always having some job to do, someone to help, only not me... I almost wish, he'd never return!"

  
  
  


Gadget sighed.

She had been unfair to father. Later she found out there had been outbreak of 'sleeping sickness' in East Africa, and dad was delivering the vaccine. He probably had saved thousands of lives, and that was worth more that being home at her birthday. But, anyway, she remembered her fifteenth birthday as dark and lonely...

She skipped a few pages, and found another note--the shortest in the diary.

"Dad's dead..."

After it, followed a few pages, filled with unreadable words, smeared by teardrops.

For near year, she wrote down only dates. She couldn't accept the loss. Partially, she counted herself guilty for it, for wishing, that he never returned. And that wish had been fulfilled, even though she didn’t really mean for it to be so...

She couldn’t remember much from that time, except the pain of loss, and the loneliness... She had been so alone... SenSan had died a few years earlier, Monterey had been lost somewhere in Africa, and Jimmy had married Wilma and moved with her to Taiwan...

She had been so alone; locked in an empty house, with the traps built so that no one would come and disturb her... She was slowly turning mad...

It ended one fateful day, when Monterey returned. She turned a few pages and found the entry...

  
  


"I feel like as if reborn... I went out for the first time in a year for something else than getting some leftovers for food... And I had almost forgotten how good it feels under the sunrays...

Monty, an old friend of my dad, had brought to me his new friends - two cute chipmunks. They both were so funny, especially the rednose...

He asked for my dad. He didn't know, yet, and I needed to tell him. It was a pain...

They wanted dad's help and I felt obliged to help them in his place. They wanted to fly to Glacier Bay, in Alaska. 

They dragged me into one fast, funny and dangerous adventure; they nearly fed me to the one fat, overgrown cat, we nearly got killed by a mad scientist and a band of gangsters...

I... 'Screaming Eagle', dad's last plane... I crashed it... But it was Monty's then, and he said it was all okay, and wasn't mad at me. I still feel ashamed, even though I rebuilt it into another plane.

It was.... It felt like being in a merry-go-round for twenty four hours a day. I think I will remember these days forever...

They promised they would come to me tomorrow, too. It's today, now. I better get to sleep so I can wake up to meet them. Ahh. And I need set off the traps. Remember, Gadget - first thing tomorrow - switch off the traps!!!"

Gadget turned the page.

"I’m moving. I can’t imagine that, and yet it's true! I’m moving again. I don’t understand why I am so excited - I have moved all my life, every year with my dad was to a several new places... 

But this time it's different... I have built my new house myself. With my new friends, I was busy for two weeks, planning and drawing, cutting and painting, building and preparing.

I am part of a family now. Monty, Chip, Dale, Zipper, and I decided to stay together, after we defeated FatCat and the gangsters, and restored the good name of Drake and Plato. We decided to stay together, to fight against those who oppressed the weak, who robbed, stole, and cheated.

Tomorrow we will move into our rebuilt home and will start a new life. We will become Rescue Rangers."

Gadget sighed. How naive they had been, starting the Rangers. They had hoped to create peace and defeat any criminals that were in the city... Now, five years later, they had discovered that it is much easier to deal with human enemies, since human courts and police, given the solid evidence, didn’t delay justice much. But what to do with an animal offender?

For the light offenses, the fear from the fact the Rangers were tracking him was usually enough to ensure the offender will stay on the good side for the rest of his life. Most of the first-time offenders stayed.

For some of the most corrupted, a death penalty, usually non-intended, as they usually fought to the death, was a last and final sentence.

But what to do with some of them that were captured and about whom the Rangers were sure, they would return to their old ways as soon as they get released?

There were zoo-magazines, but their cages held only the stupidest of the offenders.

There were labs, but usually the fate of those who went to them was worse than death.

Rangers had discovered an another group - SAP, who had converted the closed human prison on Alcatraz island into a prison for animal offenders. But they need submit themselves for the prison guards, and also the offenders had to be transported to Alcatraz, which was hard to do, as Rangers cases were sometimes international.

They usually left the offenders in the hands of the local population, letting them deal with the problem, but Gadget felt something need to be done about the situation.

They sure had lost some of the initial joy and optimism.

Gadget sighed and turned few pages.

"My... No, OUR first case. Today we saved a group of cats from the hands of Nimnul. Despite the best efforts of the human police, he had escaped his predicament of jail, and was on free legs, again scheming against the city. We destroyed his plans but he is still free and I predict we have not seen the last of him."

Gadget smiled.

It wasn’t just their first case... She had found out she liked the attention both chipmunks had toward her. She hadn't thought anything about it at that time, but, looking back, she knew that maybe on that day, the first seeds of their love were planted.

Closing her eyes, she still could recall the moment between her and Chip...

Gadget shaked her head, and skipped the page.

"All the amulets are only for fools and for weak people. I discovered an unbelievable thing. Monty - strong, old Monty - seems obsessed with the lucky four-leaf clover and lucky rabbit foots! How it can be? Chip was right when he said that the feet bring little luck to the poor rabbit! And all the wonders we saw today were wonders of science, not magic! Nimnul is mad as a March hare, but I can’t deny him the sparks of true genius. If only it had happened for a more worthy person, what a wonders of science he could have created..."

  
  


Magic... Gadget smiled inwardly. Maybe not always, but magic worked. She still wasn’t sure, but for that week after crashing her race-car, she had lived nearly half a year in a different world, where magic was all, while her doppelganger had made some trouble living her life here, puzzling her friends to no end. It was magic that dragged her away, and it was her own magic that restored the balance and closed the tear in reality that threatened to destroy both universes. On her shelf still stood a tome of spells Ambrosia had written while living in her body, reminding her that it was a real thing...

But this case was also the moment, she had discovered in shock, that Dale also was in love with her. She had even encouraged him unintentionally, raising a whole lot of problems she needed deal with at the end.

She had dealt with it in the wrong way, she later found out. But she was so young and inexperienced. She was flattered by the attention, and she knew - by choosing one, the other would suffer. She had held it bottled inside her, treating both the same way, but the suffering was hers now. And after some moments, she had chosen. Though she didn’t announce it openly for a long time, nor let the choose one know, she had decided.

"Chip is caught! No, in reality I doubt, he would--even in a nightmare--consider himself marrying Tammy, but he could have told it to her in more properly chosen words. She is a teenager, after all. Doesn’t he remember himself at her age? The first love... Gosh, what am I writing..? I, who don't know myself, what it is... I... 

Dale told me that some time ago Chip was in love with an another chipmunk - Caprice. He even showed me her photo. It remains a question - why he kept the photo if, as he said, he wasn’t interested in the least bit. I need to ask Chip about that."

Gadget smiled. Tammy had grown up and the problem solved itself, much to the relief of Chip and Tammy's mother. But there was Bink's coming of age, and she was showing same signs as Tammy. Gadget decided she would need to talk with both sisters, and soon. After all was settled down; sometime in two or three weeks. It will surely hold for that long.

And that Clarice question... Dale had forgot to mention he was in same situation as Chip, too; madly in love with Caprice, and ready to pull any prank on Chip to win her. Similar to the way he was fighting with Chip over her heart.

For now, it was funny... but for that time... Was she really becoming jealous? Was that the first time she had admitted she was caring about the chipmunks?

"Today is the worst day! They again played a joke on my inventions! I have had enough! One more snappy comment on my inventions, and I... I don’t know what I will do, but I will do something! 'Your inventions aren't safe!' For G-ds sake! Aren’t safe! Try to build something and then criticize, mister SharpHead!"

Gadget read that sentence and smiled. Her inventions had always been a weak point of her. Had Bubbles known psychology a small bit better, he may well had come out the winner from their duel. He had been so close. But these few wrong phrases, these few things revealed, that weren’t meant to be, and she got angry instead of being shattered. It was good thing for the Rangers, but it also forced her to rethink much. The next month she had regularly talked with old Pop Top, and it had helped.

It was still a topic that can hurt her a lot, but it didn’t make her do anything stupid now, like quitting the Rangers.

"We meet Monty's dad, the famous Charley Cheddarhead. I had imagined him much differently from the reality, due to the Monty's tales. He was charming. He knew how to make an impression, but who knows how many times he got us into danger because he was impatient or ready to rush in without any plans? I don’t know who was a bigger danger to us - him, or Fat Cat, whom we were fighting? But he left us, for the best of luck and our safety. His wife, however, decided to drop in on the same day. She is sleeping into guestroom now. I wonder, what will tomorrow bring? From the introduction, she seems the same, if not worse."

Gadget smiled. Fortunately, it didn't turn out as badly as she had feared.

  
  


Gadget looked at the small invitation card glued into her diary. "Cassandra. If you need to find out the future, come to me. I will not lie to you." She smiled. 

"Your predictions can be interpreted in various ways, Miss Cassandra," she whispered. However, she was happy about the way it had happened. It had ended the indecision.

"I’m so happy the prediction failed! Chip is with us, and will be with us."

Gadget remembered the shock she had felt when she saw only the brim of the Chip's hat showing from under that box... It was the end of the universe. He had died. And she hadn't had the chance to tell him that she loved him. For once, her armor of non-emotions had been shattered, and she had cried out her pain.

It was the accident that opened her eyes.

It couldn’t go on in that way. Something needed to be done. And she did it.

Ahh... The first open talk. And the first photos exchanged. It was Chip's idea to take pictures, when he had led her on a walk through the park. It was Chip's idea, but she had agreed to it. They decided to keep it a secret, for a while. She still wanted time to get her feelings in order, to be sure about herself. Chip had agreed. Her photo was all he had asked.

Gadget pulled out Chip's photo from where it was, stuck between the last pages of her diary. He looked strange without his hat, looking straight into the viewfinder.

Gadget skipped over the next few cases, 'til some drawing on the side of the page caught her attention. She read ir more carefully.

"Our picnic was a disaster, and Chip and Dale broke my newest rangermobile. But it had one good thing - I meet Sparky. He is rat, but he is pale like me, and he is a scientist, like me. It is so good to talk to someone who understands what you are saying. He visited our home, and I visited his laboratory. It is impressive."

Sparky. It was been his head that she had drawn on side of her diary. But it wasn’t serious. It was a meeting of two professionals. They both had so much common, but... There was no romance, no sparks...

Why had Chip and Dale been so jealous? Was she really the cause of it? Was she guilty, that in her indecision, she was leading them to the wrong conclusions? They had all risked their lives, in that case, but a few times might have been averted, if not for her indecision...

Gadget blushed. No. This page will definitely go 'bye, if she will someday allow someone to read it.

Sparky's head seemed to wink to her. He will be here tomorrow, too, to celebrate it with the others. Had he, too, hoped? She hoped he was not too downcast after the finale, but he was still single, while Buzz had married two years ago and was already was a father to two small mischiefs in fur.

"I can’t believe it! I’m not single anymore! I have a sister! Well, she is only a half-sister, and she is not the best sister one could wish for, as she was a criminal in past and she used me in her schemes... But she is my sister... 

Chip can be angry, Dale can growl, Zipper can, for hundred times, tell of how she threatened him, and Monty can warn me not to trust her, but Monty himself once said, "blood is thicker that water..." She IS my sister! I know it, even if I felt the need at first to deny any relation to her. But... well, when we meet in that hall in England, in castle of my family... I saw how she pushed herself... How she fought her very nature to accept me... She, too, was alone and wanted something... Why does Fate play with us so hard? I accepted her. I didn’t forgive her; that's something only time can cure, but I accepted her.

Only, I can’t understand dad. Why? How could he dump Lawainee's mother? She was waiting with his child! It was... 

I can’t understand it. I have tried to understand for all those years. I knew it, but I still can't. He was so caring after me, when he wasn’t away to one of his travels. He loved my mother so much, even if he never told me about her. But he never married again, and I'd had known if he had had any others in his life; children usually know that by instinct.

From Lawainee's words, one day he simply left on his travel to never return. Not a single letter. I had read his previous letters to Jenny; Lawainee allowed me. I was in shock... "

Gadget turned few pages.

"Chip asked my hand... Wow! At last... He asked me, if I will marry him. I can't say he was impatient - he waited long enough. It was me, who still had not sorted out my own feelings. And I asked him to wait one more week...

Do I love him? Why do I ask now, when I have already decided to say 'yes'? Is it so? He is a good and trustworthy friend, but so is Dale, and Monty is even more. He loves me, I am sure about that, but Dale too loves me, and I am sure about that, too."

Gadget closed her eyes and remembered the evening. They had finished chasing a snake with a megalomania of leadership out of city sewers, and Chip had declared a break and at the last day invited them all to luxury restaurant for a victory feast. There, while Zipper and Monty lead Dale away, he had asked her the question.

"If it was a dream, then I have a notebook lying ahead of me to ensure, it was true. It had happened. There IS another world. And magic IS working... But I still can't be sure... I still feel it was like a dream... If not the words of others, and if not the spells, that was written on paper in my own handwriting... Somehow I also feel this event let me decide. The adventure taught me some good advice. It was as if I had become a year older in a few days."

Was it the advice of her older self? Was it the fact that she could lose him forever that solved it?

"I accepted! I feel like a shoolgirl before the final ball. We haven’t yet told the news to others, but I am sure Monty and Zipper know. They are always shielding us from Dale. I need to talk with him, but I can’t build the courage. What I can say to him? "Sorry, Dale. I like you, but I love Chip." What if he ran away? I don’t love him, but what I can do? What I can do?"

"It happened... Why did I have to tell the news to Foxglove? What a fool I was! She immediately told it all to Dale. And that evening, Dale literally flew in with Foxy in tow and went straight for Chip's throat. It was terrible. Monty pried them apart, but not before Chip had torn ears, and Dale a swollen eye. Dale teared out and locked in the kitchen. Monty led Chip to their room, and I tried to talk with Dale but he didn’t open the doors. I need to return and talk to him... I am so afraid of what may now happen..."

"It hurts... Monty was right; it hurts like a hell... Dale understood us... But did that make the acceptance easier? I don’t think so.

Dale attacked Chip more more. But he did little better. He was doing his job as Ranger, but only that. He says not a word to Chip or me. He talks only to Monty or Zipper. I feel terrible."

"I can't take anymore! I feel so terrible tired!

Monty is dark, too. Today I talked with him. We tried to find a solution, but didn’t see any... Someone has to leave. But that means the end of the Rescue Rangers...

Neither Monty nor I wanted it, and I am sure Chip will be against it too - he is so proud of the group and our functions...

We decided to try to talk all together tomorrow..."

"The problem is solved now. Partially.

Before that case, the Rangers had been the closest to being gone than ever. The hardness of our inner problems had affected our performance as crimesolvers. We failed to stop two of Fat Cat's robbery shemes, and we were very close to failing to stop Nimnul's last scheme of destroying city. It had been others that saved the day - Foxy, Tammy, Mairon and others.

Dale had become a bit more normal, if the word 'normal' can be used in conjunction with him. He still avoids Chip and he now lives into guestroom, but at least he talks with us. I suspect Foxy washed his head after I poured out my hopelessness to her, and also because as she involuntary was a cause of it..."

Gadget sighed and closed her diary.

She knew what to write in it now, but she felt so tired. She picked up the pen and slowly started to write.

"Tomorrow's the big day. The day HackWrench will be gone and I will become missis MapleWood. Maybe I should reprint the title?

I think, however, I will keep this hidden from Chip's paws, or he will become too familiar with my feelings. Maybe later..."

Gadget closed the diary.

Was she happy? Tomorrow, at last, it will happen. It was four months after the breaking point.

The words of her dad came to her mind.

"I wanted to tear out some pages of my life. I wish you will never want to do so with yours."

Was her life so?

Gadget shaked her head, dropping her golden hair over her pillows. Tomorrow all their friends will meet here. Hopefully, none of their past enemies will honor the ceremony with their arrival, or at least not with troublemaking. Too bad Mrs. McDugal was not able to attend, but it was forgivable, as she was waiting for her firstborn. But they will travel, for their honeymoon, to Hawaii, and by that time Lawainee will have already delivered and then Gadget will need to be ready to become aunt.

Gadget smiled. 

"Me, an aunt!" she whispered, shaking her head.

It was unsuspected, but sure, if people marry there will be children sooner or later.

What will her and Chip's be?

And with that thought Gadget fell asleep.

The end.

**Author's Note:**

> A small note on a series timeline thing. I had tried to build a timeline of all the ranger adventures, but I failed. I have no series videotaped, and doubt, I ever will - I don’t possess a VCR, and will not in any close future.  
> I know the ep-list of the series. I know that the series can be divided into two parts - with RangerPlane, and with RangerWing. I know that there are some series that definitely are placed AFTER some other series, as "Last Leprechaun" happens straight after "Ghost of Chance", and "Piratsy under the Sea" is before "Chipwrecked Shipmunks". "A Chorus Crime" is before "They Shoot Dogs, Don’t They", but "Mind Your Own Cheese and Qs" happens some time earlier that "The S.S Drainpipe". But other than that? And so I assumed:  
> 1\. "Seer no Evil" had happened before "Does Pavlow Ring a Bell". Read my story to find out why.  
> 2\. "Gadget Goes Hawaiian" happened before "Love is a Many Splintered Thing". Read 'Sisters' to find out, why.


End file.
